“In other words, ‘resident aliens’ lived neither as natives nor as tourists. Though they were not permanently rooted, neither were they merely travelers who were just passing through.” I found Center Church to be a typical Keller book: thoughtful, logical, biblical, humble, irenic, provocative and thankfully lacking dogmatism. I love the fact that while he […]
Once Upon a Time… The last verse of an old love song ponders the discontinuous nature of all human experience. “Once upon a time The world was sweeter than we knew Everything was ours How happy we were then But somehow once upon a time Never comes again” With nostalgia we look back to good […]
In Where Mortals Dwell: A Christian View of Place for Today, author Craig Bartholomew is concerned with the recovery of the Christian view of place and practice of placemaking. In part 1, the author expounds extensively on biblical research, following the traces of place from Creation to Revelation. In the second part, place is traced […]
In the revised and expanded 2011 edition of Walking with the Poor, author Bryant Myers has provided fresh insights and relevant up-to-date information from agencies and the development community around the world. Now a professor of international development at Fuller Theological Seminary, Myers has widened his scope of resources since leaving his executive role at […]
In his book, Culture Makers, Andy Crouch raises the question, “What does it mean to be not just culturally aware … [or] culture consumers or even just culture critics, but culture makers?” (Crouch, 2008). Drawing from the field of sociology, Crouch first explores the meaning of culture. He then ingeniously retells the story of Scripture […]
Written as a textbook for students and practitioners of community development, Asset Building & Community Development presents the reader with basic concepts, a map of institutions, common strategies, case studies, and available resources for urban developing work (Green & Haines, 2012). Not intended to be “cookbook on how to mobilize communities,” the authors focus more […]
In their book, To Transform a City, author Eric Swanson and co-author Sam Williams aim to help the reader to “understand how to think about cities” (Swanson & Williams, 2010). Written at a strategic level, the authors present the big ideas and ideals of city transformation. Examples, illustrations and charts are given to inspire the […]
In The Tangible Kingdom, authors Hugh Halter and Matt Smay tell the story of the birth of Adullam, “a congregational network of incarnational communities in Denver, Colorado.” Having trained church planters and consulted churches over a period of seven years, their hopes are that more leaders will become missional and incarnational. Halter, the primary author, […]
By Cameron Arensen “Same, same… but different.” This phrase came back to me as I stood, coffee cup in hand, chatting with new friends. The phrase? It is a useful one for those of us who live in a country other than our own; especially a country where English is not the only language being […]
By Graham Chipps For me, when the word “hospitality” is used, my mind brings up images of warmth and acceptance-as-I-am, of warm fresh bread and relaxed conversation, and woven in between a sense of peacefulness. Hospitality generates a feeling of at-home-ness even when one is far from home. Here there can be found a generosity […]